I’ve mentioned Ultra Essence before. They were the subject of an earlier post because they provided a great example of how a correctly designed advertising display increases sales. The company has a new skin-care product for men, “Ultra Handy Man” or simply “Handy Man,” that gives me the chance to write about a simple case […]
This is the story of a book. It starts in a waiting room, where the lady sitting next to me had a spiral bound book on her knee. It looked — it screamed — “home made.” It wasn’t something you’d want to try to read. I couldn’t let it go by without doing something to help, […]
Here’s a common scene that plays out between a designer and a client: Designer: “We can’t use that image in your [brochure/flier/magazine cover] because it’s too small.” Client: “But I got it from our website. It looks fine there, and it’s almost three inches square!” Designer: “Well, do you have the original photograph? I can […]
Ultra Essence is a national distributor of popular skin care products, sold primarily at shows, state fairs and similar venues, where people are looking for things they don’t normally find in stores. Their sales booth advertising was in need of a face lift, though, being just a bit too “down home” and not a good […]
Working with entertainment clients, you sometimes get a project that has to be turned out very quickly with limited resources. The show WILL go on, and a full-page ad that’s due on press tomorrow must have enough impact to make people notice the show and want to attend. On this occasion, we had about three […]
It’s a fact of the Internet that things can be copied far and wide with very little control. In some respects, that’s fantastic. You can get information about almost anything, any time. Some it is even accurate. But when it comes to betting your business on something you find “in the cloud,” it’s a good […]
I’m often asked by friends and associates to teach them this or that about Photoshop, among other graphics applications in Adobe’s massive catalog of industrial-strength software. I’ll spend half an hour or so going over how to solve the particular problem they’re wrestling with at the time. It’s fun, it breaks up my day a […]
If you write business letters or other company documents, there are almost certainly some terms (like your company or product name), that you end up typing a lot. This might not be an issue if your company name is “Acme, Inc.,” but something like “Serious Business Strategies” or “Life Enhancement Supplement” might get a bit […]
The latest issue of Creative Tips, going live tomorrow, details more about what a style book is and how to make one. Very few small to medium size businesses have a style book, far less use one, because nobody teaches business owners (or dentists, or consultants… name your field) that the marketplace does, 100 percent, […]
Microsoft Word, Open Office, Corel WordPerfect: they’re everywhere. Almost every business in the Americas, Europe, Australia (or 90 percent of the rest of the world, for that matter) uses one of the Big Three or an equivalent. We used to use typewriters, back when they were fairly cheap but “word processors” (specialized computers that only […]
